Open Thread

For Lent, Nick gave up talking about the ’08 campaign. This, coming from a guy who once told me there are seven different kinds of Southern Democrats. What did Nick not give up for Lent? Astute political analysis at his blog, Electoral Math.

Longtime Richland state Rep. Shirley Hankins has repeatedly used the power of her office in the past five years to muscle state and local officials into directing business to her two daughters’ struggling tire baling company.

A Herald investigation shows the Republican lawmaker’s efforts to promote Northwest Tire Recycling have ranged from carefully indirect to downright blunt, and the tactics raise questions about abuse of power.

Hankins denies any wrongdoing or applying excessive pressure. Her hometown paper says that the work on behalf of the company included lobbying the state Department of Ecology.

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Investors today expressed their lack of confidence in the Bush Economy by dumping 546 points off the Dow before recovering slightly. Last time I checked, the Dow is down 375 points. Looks like someone is expecting a recession!

“WASHINGTON (Feb. 27) – Rushed by President Bush’s decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army’s premier training range ….

“Some in Congress and others outside the Army are beginning to … wonder whether it means the Army is cutting corners in preparing soldiers for combat, since they are forgoing training in a desert setting that was designed specially to prepare them for the challenges of Iraq.

“Army officials say the two brigades will be as ready as any others that deploy to Iraq, even though they will not have the benefit of training in counterinsurgency tactics at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., which has been outfitted to simulate conditions in Iraq for units that are heading there on yearlong tours.

“Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Monday she is concerned about the ‘less-than-ideal training situation’ for the 4th Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, which is based in her state …. That brigade is to go to Iraq in April, one month earlier than planned. …

“Some outside observers say it was inevitable that, in a pinch, the Army would tinker with training. ‘It tracks with what we should expect when we hurry the units up in their last three months’ before a deployment, said Kevin Ryan, a retired brigadier general and former Army planner ….

“Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute … said, ‘… it carries a modicum of risk.'”

@5 I don’t wish assassination on anyone. I don’t wish for Dick Cheney’s pacemaker to crap out. (pause) I wish Dick a long and happy life. (gag) But I also wish he’d recognize his limitations and just fucking resign.

6
I also don’t wish assassination on anyone. In taking measure of Cheney’s life, however, I think he has failed in what should be anyone’s objective on this earth: to make the world just a little better for having been here. His existence has been a net negative.

Rumsfield and Cheney have been tinkering around in the Middle East since the Ford years, switching jobs back and forth at times. They have thought of themselves as modern-day Metternichs, pushing their way around and dealing with this nation or faction against the other. In the long term, all they have done is created ever-increasing turmoil in the region. In an area where even the small tribal chieften needs to have the wisdom of Solomon and the political deviousness of Machiavelli, they are more like hayseeds attending their first carnival.

One of their earlier escapades, during the Reagan years, had them supporting Christian militias in the Lebanese mountains with 18-inch shells from the battleship Missouri, while sending U.S. Marines as “peacekeepers” to hold the airport in Beirut. I guess they thought the Lebanese Muslims would distinquish between the U.S. Navy, who they couldn’t hit, from the U.S. Marine “peacekeepers”, who they could hit. If you recall, a suicide bomber took out the Marine barracks in Beirut, costing quite a few Marine lives.

Let’s not forget the the pictures of a smiling Rumsfield shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, while he is making deals to give Iraq U.S. intelligence to be used against Iran, all the while trading arms to Iran for western hostages in Lebanon, with the profits used to support black operations in Honduras/Nicaragua which were against U.S. law at the time?

In the most current incarnation, the U.S. is backing a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq, while making belligerent moves towards Iran which is assisting Iraqi Shiites in the blossoming civil war with Sunni insurgents, who are the ones planting IED’s which are killing our troops. As the U.S. influence in the Middle East deteriorates further, the administration is also backing a Sunni government in Jordan (against perceived threats from Shiite insurgents and Syrian influence) with money that is not appropriated by congress, but is instead cash laundered through Iraq black-bag operations. That money is going to fund militias in Lebanon which are argued to be anit-Shiite, but which have ties to Al Quida.

And for those that would respond that Rumsfield is gone, so I shouldn’t be bringing him up, I would point out that he has pretty much screwed up things in each of the last four Republican administrations, (Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II), yet as of a week ago Rumsfield still had an office in the Pentagon, along with several aids. I don’t know if he is still there or not, but I suspect he is wielding considerable power behind the scenes, letting generals and admirals know that Gates is just a temporary place-holder to keep Congress quiet for the time being, and if anyone gets out of line Rumsfield will just put in a call to Dick Cheney. Whoever isn’t being sufficiently “coopertive” will find themselves in charge of NORAD facilities on the north slope of Alaska while their “retirement” papers are being processed.

When Bush was first elected, I figured this country could survive anything he tried to do relatively intact. After all, I presumed that he and his supporters really had the best interests of the country at heart, even if their priorities were a bit skewed and some of their ideas didn’t make a lot of sense. After all, his Dad (and his Dad’s people, like James Baker III) would be around to give him some advice, wouldn’t he? And Cheney had the experience Bush lacked,didn’t he?

Boy, was I wrong. It is amazing how much damage one President can really do when Congress and the Supreme Court are controlled by radical idealouges who are even more extreme and illogical than he is during his wilder moments.

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